


Equivalent Exchange

by Haicrescendo



Series: Even Dead I’ll Throw Hands [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: A Ghost Story, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon has been taken out back and shot, Child Loss, Discussion of Genocide, Gen, Miscarriage, Patricide, Regicide, a lot of ‘cides, agni does not help with this, agni is kind of a dickhead, but not romantic love because uh NO, canon-typical imperialism, except that technically he did, in which lu ten is prince zuko’s aggressively protective guardian spirit, in which lu ten will do literally anything for his little cousin, lu ten did not sign up for this, lu ten has no chill, made up spirituality, oops it’s definitely child abuse, or maybe a love story, somehow everything is horrible and yet this still manages to be soft as hell, that’s like a whole plot point, tiny zuko is trying his best, trauma-based selective mutism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:07:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23132179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: [“Are you dead?” Are the first words that come out of Zuko’s mouth. Lu Ten winces. He’s barely adjusted to the idea himself, but he still wasn’t expecting Zuko to reach that conclusion so fast. He can’t lie to him.He nods.“I am.”“But you’re real.”“Yeah. Real dead.”He tries for a joke but Zuko bursts into tears instead.]Or,Lu Ten makes a promise, Lu Ten dies. Lu Ten comes back.
Relationships: Iroh & Lu Ten, Lu Ten & Zuko
Series: Even Dead I’ll Throw Hands [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1870867
Comments: 346
Kudos: 6493
Collections: A:tla, AtLA <25k fics to read, Best of: Avatar The Last Airbender, Finished111, Good_or_Decent_Zuko_With_a_dash_of_Iroh_Azula_Gaang, Koi’s atla fic recs, Quality ATLA, The Best of Zuko, escapism (to forget that the world is a burning hellscape), fics that cured ser's depression, y’all wanna cry?





	Equivalent Exchange

**Author's Note:**

> SO. UH. 
> 
> This was written on a whim to get me out of my frustration rut in regard to COFY. I really loved writing it and if you like it too or have anything to say about it, please leave me a comment! They really do help keep a writer fed and properly motivated. ♥️
> 
> As always, I can be found on tumblr @sword-and-stars.

* * *

  
Lu Ten’s very first baby cousin is _tiny._

He’s very tiny and very perfect in every way, and when Aunt Ursa asks if he wants to hold him, all Lu Ten can do is hold out his hands and try, very desperately, not to cry. He misses his own mother very much, but he’s not a _baby_ about it—he’s ten years old and he still has Father, and Aunt Ursa is so very good to him, as close as a mother could be.

“What should we name him?”

Lu Ten jerks and instinctively holds his little cousin closer, so afraid of dropping him.

Aunt Ursa’s eyeing him quietly, knowingly, the way she does sometimes. He doesn’t always know what it means, but she always seems to know more than anyone else, even when she’s very quiet about it. Someone has to be quiet, Lu Ten thinks. Uncle Ozai sure isn’t, especially when it happens that his first son comes closer to midnight than sunrise, weak and tiny and shivering.

Uncle Ozai came in once, glowered at his wife and son, and left.

Lu Ten has been there ever since.

Aunt Ursa prayed and he did too, pleading with Agni not to take his baby cousin away. He’ll do _anything,_ Lu Ten thinks as hard as he can. He’ll give away all his toys and he’ll never, ever complain about chores. He’ll do whatever he has to. Let him keep this baby and he’ll look after him _forever_.

And the baby had lived.

Lu Ten peers down at the baby in his arms, grins a wet, teary smile when the boy’s eyes open.

Gold already, the brightest and clearest gold that Lu Ten’s ever seen. Even Father had come into this world with eyes of infant blue, Lu Ten knows, because grown-ups tell the same stories over and over again.

“I don’t know,” he finally says, because nothing in his brain is good enough for this tiny kid to carry for a lifetime. Is anything? Lu Ten doesn’t even know who named _him_.

Aunt Ursa smiles at him, then, and opens an arm for him to curl into her. She has room enough for both of them.

“How about...Zuko?” She asks.

Lu Ten rolls the name around in his brain. Zuko, Zuko, Zuko. He likes it.

“Zuko,” he mumbles, “Zuko, my little cousin.”

The baby yawns hugely, and Lu Ten follows right after him. His head tips against Aunt Ursa’s thin shoulder, and she presses a kiss to his temple. He passes it down to tiny baby Zuko in his arms. It’s the first time that Lu Ten gets to kiss him but it won’t be the last, he promises to no one. He’ll kiss him and hug him and love him and protect him, _forever_.

He doesn’t notice when his eyelids get heavy or when Aunt Ursa calls gently for a servant to help her maneuver him into a more comfortable position to stay in and shift Zuko so that when Lu Ten goes slack, he won’t fall. He doesn’t hear them ask if she’d like for someone to come and put the Crown Prince to bed, and he doesn’t hear her refuse the offer.

When he wakes up, the warm morning sunshine is coming in through the window and he’s curled up next to Aunt Ursa. She’s feeding Zuko and talking to Father at the same time, and Lu Ten feels like he could stay like this and be happy for the rest of his life.

* * *

Prince Zuko is, like, the most adorable, perfect kid on the planet.

Lu Ten knows that he’s biased and doesn’t care even a little bit, because he’s the only one that Zuko follows around like a shaky little turtleduck, except for maybe Aunt Ursa, grabbing at his hand with his tiny, chubby fingers and pulling on his sleeves. Lu Ten loves him more than _anything,_ even more than azuki bean cakes or New Year’s mochi. More than once suffers through a lecture from his tutors when it becomes clear that he’s accidentally smuggled his little cousin into his lessons with him.

Lu Ten takes his lectures without complaint or change in behavior. 

If Zuko wants to follow him around to his classes, it just means that he’s already smart and ready to learn! At least, that’s what he tells Aunt Ursa when she comes to collect her son, pouting when she tells him that Zuko’s going to be spoiled by him.

A little spoiling doesn’t hurt, Lu Ten decides, especially considering that Uncle Ozai doesn’t even like looking at his only kid. He’s always been cold, but Lu Ten kind of thought that it was because he didn’t have a kid of his own, that maybe he’d thaw out when Zuko came around.

Lu Ten doesn’t know how anyone could stay so frigid in the company of such a cute, friendly toddler. 

Uncle Ozai manages, though. Somehow.

“It’s not nice!” Lu Ten grumbles into his rice that night. “He doesn’t smile at him, or hug him. He doesn’t even like him!”

“Don’t be rude,” Father tells him mildly, “That’s still your uncle you’re talking about. Just because he isn’t as overt as you’d like him to be doesn’t mean that he doesn’t care for Zuko just as much as you do.”

“ _Okay,_ but—“

“But nothing, Lu Ten. Your uncle is going to be how he’s going to be. The only one you can change is yourself.”

That’s it, then. Lu Ten will just have to make up for it, and that’s exactly what he tells Aunt Ursa the next time Zuko follows him to class.

She stares at him for a long while, shock turning into calm consideration, and then leans forever to pull him into a hug. 

“In that case,” she says, “Please keep loving my son, Prince Lu Ten.”

* * *

Lu Ten is getting another cousin.

Not in a while, not soon, but _right now_.

The sun’s beginning to creep up over the horizon, edging towards dawn. It’s an auspicious time for a Fire Prince or Princess to be born, unlike Zuko’s midnight, and hopes are high that the newest royal will be a strong firebender. No one says _unlike Prince Zuko_ but nobody has to; everyone remembers.

Lu Ten sits in the hallway, Zuko curled up in his arms. He tried to stay up as late as he could but he’s falling asleep, head lolling against Lu Ten’s collarbone. Lu Ten can’t sleep; he’s too excited to find out whether Zuko’s getting a baby brother or a baby sister.

Uncle Ozai’s here for the birth of his second child.

And then the screaming starts.

Zuko wakes up with a hard jerk and starts crying, fat tears rolling down his cheeks at the sudden noise. Lu Ten holds him a little bit tighter and buries his face in his hair. 

He hears shouts and clatters and the screaming doesn’t stop—

Until it does.

Everything is quiet, quiet in a way that’s terrifying. And then someone starts crying, a long, keening wail that doesn’t sound anything like a baby. The door slams open and Uncle Ozai storms out of the birthing room, face drained of all its color. He disappears into a room at the end of the hall and doesn’t come out.

Lu Ten hoists Zuko into his arms and peers into the birthing room—freezes.

Aunt Ursa clutches a tiny white bundle of fabric in her arms, sobbing hysterically into Father’s shoulder. He's not crying but his eyes are wet and rimmed with red and it shakes Lu Ten down to his core to see it.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Aunt Ursa wails, “It doesn’t make sense. She was fine. _She was fine. She was fine._ ”

“...Father? Aunt Ursa?”

“Go put Prince Zuko to bed,” Father says and leaves no room for argument at all. “ _Now._ ”

Lu Ten flees and when he reaches Zuko’s quarters, he can’t bear to just leave him there. He crawls under the blankets and curls around his baby cousin. He doesn’t know when he started to cry himself.

“Lu Ten? Okay?” Zuko babbles in toddler concern, pats Lu Ten on his cheek and squeezes softly. “Lu Ten okay?”

“It’s okay, Zuko. It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. I’m here.” Lu Ten scrubs his hand across his eyes and tries hard to stop crying. “I’ve got you, firecracker. I’ve always got you.”

He doesn’t know what’s going on but he knows that somehow, everything has gone wrong.

* * *

Aunt Ursa lost the baby. 

Nobody tells Lu Ten this but nobody has to. He doesn’t see Aunt Ursa for over a week and in that time, she makes no attempt to come get Zuko. Lu Ten doesn’t go to his classes and no one tells him that he has to.

Father’s forced out on war efforts even though it’s clear he’d rather be here instead, and Uncle Ozai hasn’t come to get him either. So Zuko stays with Lu Ten, and Lu Ten stays in Zuko’s chambers, except for when the walls start closing in and he has to get some air.

Zuko spends a day or two asking for his mother, and then goes silent, and no amount of engaging with him will get him to talk anymore. Lu Ten doesn’t know how much he understands, but he explains as best he can because he doesn’t know what he’s doing either.

All he knows that he can do is keep a hold on his little cousin, even when everything else seems to be falling apart.

Lu Ten is powerless, but this is something that he knows how to do.

Finally, Father returns a week later, and Lu Ten’s so happy to see him that he bursts into relieved tears, presses his hands hard into his eyes to try and stop them. Then there’s two sets of arms holding him, Zuko gripping him around the middle with everything he has and Father holding onto both of them.

And Lu Ten feels safe, so safe he doesn’t have words for it.

Father will take care of it. He’ll make sure that everyone comes out of this okay.

* * *

Things are different but not necessarily better.

It’s silly to be so attached to a toddler, but Lu Ten goes three weeks without seeing Zuko and feels like he’s going to start climbing the walls with anxiety. He asks Father every day if he’s seen him, but all he’s told is that matters are sensitive, and to be patient with his Aunt and Uncle. That this is a hard time for them and they’d rather keep to themselves for a while.

Lu Ten tries his best to be _sensitive_ but it’s hard. He hopes that Zuko’s back to talking again, at least. He’s so little.

Uncle Ozai’s back to his normal self, but Aunt Ursa is not. The one time he sees her, he nearly doesn’t recognize her, because she’s pale and weak and sad, like a shadow. She doesn’t have Zuko with her, and Lu Ten wonders where he is.

He runs to her and hugs her anyway, feels the lines of her ribs and tries to be gentle, except that he thinks she needs the extra squeeze anyway.

“I love you, Aunt Ursa,” he says, “I missed you.”

_I’m_ **_sorry_** _,_ he doesn’t say.

She squeezes him back, hard. 

“I missed you too, Prince Lu Ten.”

_I miss Zuko too,_ is what he doesn’t say.

She hears it anyway, because the next day his firebending lesson is crashed by a dark-haired toddler shrieking his name at the top of his lungs, and Lu Ten drops everything he’s doing to scoop him up and spin him around.

And feels _right_ for the first time in almost a month.

* * *

Zuko’s firebending is _late_.

Late, not nonexistent, Lu Ten tells him firmly when the boy’s grouchy and irritated. Everyone bends at different times, he says, four years old is actually quite early to expect it and six is totally normal. It’ll come, otherwise the flame at the tip of his candle wouldn’t move with his breath, but it takes time.

Lu Ten didn’t bend until five but for some reason, Uncle Ozai starts pushing his son hard the moment he turns four, as if that’s somehow going to force the fire out of him.

It doesn’t work, of course, because it doesn’t work like that, but it frustrates Zuko anyway, who’s desperate to please his father in any way that he can. Lu Ten doesn’t remember ever being treated like that, but it doesn’t take an idiot to realize that Iroh and Ozai are extremely different people.

Lu Ten never felt like he had anything to prove to his own father, and has always felt love and warmth without question, like something to be assumed. Zuko, at six years old, is both desperate and terrified and very aware that his father’s love is conditional.

Desperate to be enough, to be _good_ , to be what Uncle Ozai wants him to be. And at the same time, absolutely terrified of him. 

Lu Ten hates it.

There’s only so much he can do, but Zuko’s a kindhearted, sensitive kid, and it seems like Uncle Ozai only has hard words for him. Zuko never looks so small as when he’s in the same room as his father, so Lu Ten tries to build him up when they’re together.

He doesn’t see him quite as often, now, because Lu Ten is sixteen and Zuko has lessons of his own, though he still regularly sneaks out of them and hovers close to the training yards to watch his older cousin. He doesn’t come too close, but Lu Ten knows the minute he shows up as if his whole existence is attuned to him somehow.

Zuko might not have his fire yet but that doesn’t mean he can’t learn plenty of basics, and Lu Ten spends a good chunk of time running through cold katas with him. That way, when it finally comes in, he won’t be so _behind_. It’s good for Zuko to feel good at something, and he’s very, very good. He listens well and tries to only kick the ground a little bit when he gets frustrated, and gets up every time he hits the dirt. It takes him a longer than average time to get a set down but when it clicks, he’s got it down to perfection. He’s a motivated and creative student, and teaching him is gratifying in a way that Lu Ten doesn’t expect.

He doesn’t understand how the kid’s instructors can complain so much about him. He hears them talk, sometimes, never directly in his presence but close enough that he can hear. The youngest prince is stubborn and untalented, _so very_ unlike Prince Lu Ten.

It pisses him off so Lu Ten teaches him some hand-to-hand, too, from what he’s gleaned off the soldiers he knows and definitely not the royal instructors. It’s considered inappropriate for royalty to stoop to such methods, but—and Lu Ten hates to think about it, but if the kid takes too long to throw flame, he’s going to need some other way to defend himself.

Lu Ten knows that he’s not going to be kept safe in the palace forever. He wants to go and fight, for the glory of his nation, to defend his country against all those that would stomp them down.

(He doesn’t think, not yet, that it might be wrong. It’s too soon.)

Zuko’s fire comes in when he’s six and a half, and he nearly burns down the gardens in his excitement to come find Lu Ten and shout at him about it. He’s sooty and the ends of his bangs are singed and he’s sobbing with glee when he gets to the training yards, Lu Ten doesn’t give a shit what his instructors think or say about his lack of royal decorum when he hollers with joy right back at him, tosses him into the air and catches him on the way down, burnt ends and all.

* * *

Lu Ten goes to war as soon as he’s allowed. As soon as Father can’t legally stop him. It’s his responsibility to serve, he insists. How could he ever be Fire Lord if he doesn’t know what their people go through?

It’s _awful_.

Lu Ten spends so many days slogging through mud and accomplishing absolutely nothing, and begins, especially late at night when he has no one to be responsible for, to wonder if there’s even a point to this.

Those are traitor thoughts, but once they start, they don’t stop.

It seems so pointless and with every letter Lu Ten has to write home to someone’s family, a bigger and bigger part of him feels like it’s all for nothing.

Except that it’s not for nothing. That’s what everyone grows up being told. It cannot be for nothing.

If it’s for nothing, Lu Ten doesn’t know what he’s going to do.

* * *

  
  


It’s all for nothing, and Lu Ten dies.

* * *

Lu Ten wakes up and sits up—

Right out of his body.

He releases a steam of profanity and scrambles backwards, stares at his own dead body in horror.

“I always forget how easy it is for humans to freak.”

Lu Ten jerks around and _stares,_ because sitting on the ground behind him is a tall, lanky figure, too tall and too perfect to be human. Vaguely masculine and with slightly too-long arms, the spirit waggles it’s fingers at him.

“Hi, there.”

“Who are you?” 

The spirit grins.

“I’ll give you two guesses and the first doesn’t count.” The spirit reaches out and pats Lu Ten on his incorporeal cheek with a clawed hand, and despite being _one hundred percent dead,_ the touch feels warm, like being out in the warm summer sun. The longer Lu Ten looks at them, the more they seem to glow with inner warmth and flame.

“...Agni.”

“You got it.”

“I’m definitely dead, right?”

“Oh, super dead. Ridiculously dead.” Agni grins.

Lu Ten grimaces.

“Is this what normally happens?”

“Nope!”

“Should I...bow to you, or something?” Being dead has done wonders for Lu Ten’s already lacking spirituality. Father got all of that, and all Lu Ten got was resistance.

“You could, but I’m sure you’re ready to get to work, right?”

Agni may be a Cardinal Spirit but that doesn’t stop Lu Ten from leveling an impressive stinkeye at them anyway. Far from being offended, Agni laughs.

“Don’t tell me you don’t _know_. I always forget how self-absorbed humans are. So wrapped up in yourselves that you never assume that anyone else could possibly be paying attention.” Agni gets to their feet and pulls Lu Ten off the ground, brushes invisible dust off of his shoulders. “You’ve got a job to do, boy. You signed up for it yourself. I mean, you’ve done a pretty good job so far, but maybe you wouldn’t have kicked the bucket if you hadn’t decided to go play in a war you’ve got no business being in. That poor kid is a wreck.”

Lu Ten has _no idea_ what Agni is talking about. It shows on his face, because the spirit sighs.

“Let me set the stage for you, then. I love you as a species but wow, you’re _slow_. Okay, picture this. It’s a moonless midnight and a beautiful princess is about to bring a precious little bundle of joy into the world—but it’s not meant to be. Until a kind, bright little boy throws an offer out into the cosmos—let the baby live, and the boy would look after him forever. Ring any bells?”

Ice begins to crawl up Lu Ten’s ghostly spine.

“You offered,” Agni says, all flippancy leaving their voice, “I accepted. A deal is a deal. Not without a price, though.” 

“My death wasn’t the price?”

“Your death was a _side effect_ , kiddo. No, it wasn’t the price.” Agni stares at him, hard and serious. “It really was a shame about the little Princess.”

They grin, suddenly bright again.

“Alright, enough chit chat. Go do your job. Chop-chop.”

Agni snaps their fingers and Lu Ten disappears. 

He doesn’t see General Iroh approach over the hill and fall to his knees, because he’s already gone.

* * *

Lu Ten appears in the palace, right in front of a housekeeper.

He doesn’t really expect her to be able to see him but it’s still startling, to see someone looking _right_ at him and not see him. Worse still is when she walks right through him. His transparent body shudders and she gives a shiver, like winter’s come early. Lu Ten touches the wall experimentally. He can definitely touch things but if he focuses, he can go right through them.

_Weird._ But also kind of cool.

At least something’s cool about being dead.

Lu Ten needs to find Zuko.

He finds him, finally, in the training yard. Despite the fact that he’s capable of bending, he’s still in the habit of running through his katas without it. His form is good, though his instructor doesn’t look impressed or comment on it at all. Lu Ten scowls and approaches the ring.

Gold eyes lock on his, and Zuko falls directly onto his own face, the impact bringing up a cloud of dust. Lu Ten gapes; he wasn’t expecting anyone to see him at all!

The boy stares at him and Lu Ten frantically flaps a hand at him, covering his own lips with a finger. If Zuko tries to tell someone, they’re going to think he’s _crazy_ , and that’s unacceptable.

The kid looks like he’s going to start _crying_.

“Prince Zuko, have you damaged yourself?” Instructor Shin asks, sounding bored. Lu Ten wants to knock him out for it.

“Um,” Zuko stammers, “Uh. Maybe. I think so.” He coughs hard into his elbow and it sounds wet and suspiciously like a sob. “I’m damaged. I think I need to see a healer.”

“Go.”

Zuko goes. 

He doesn’t just go; he _runs_ , past Lu Ten entirely and bolts for the palace. Lu Ten goes after him.

“Zuko, _stop_ ,” he pleads after him, “Just—hold on a minute, okay? Just stop for a second and listen.”

“I’m going crazy,” the youngest prince is mumbling under his breath, “There’s no way.”

He’s gotten faster since Lu Ten’s been gone, if that’s even possible, but he finally manages to catch up, reaching out to grab his cousin by the arm. Zuko shivers hard at the cold that comes from his touch and stops dead where he stands, shaking like a leaf.

Lu Ten gives his arm another squeeze. Lets him go.

“Please,” he says, “Little cousin. _Baby brother_. Firecracker. I don’t want anyone to see you talking to me or they really will think you’re losing your mind. Please just walk to your room. Please keep it together, kid.”

“Are you real?” Zuko asks, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. He stares up at Lu Ten’s ghostly form with huge golden eyes. “You’re real?”

“I’m real. Please. Walk. I want to talk to you, but I can’t do it here.”

Zuko walks as sedately as he can through the palace until he reaches his quarters, where he flings the door open. He visibly resists the urge to slam it shut behind his cousin, and closes it silently behind him.

He’s not a baby anymore. Ten years old, but somehow he still manages to look so _small_. Lu Ten kneels down in front of him and looks up, pleadingly.

“I missed you.”

“Are you dead?” Are the first words that come out of Zuko’s mouth. Lu Ten winces. He’s barely adjusted to the idea himself, but he still wasn’t expecting Zuko to reach that conclusion so fast. He can’t lie to him.

He nods.

“I am.”

“But you’re real.”

“Yeah. Real dead.”

He tries for a joke, but Zuko bursts into tears instead.

Lu Ten scrambles for what to do and then eventually just leans in to wrap his arms around his little cousin and pull him into a hug, squeezing him gently.

“I’m sorry, firecracker, that wasn’t nice,” Lu Ten says gently, “I’m working on it.” Zuko’s only response is to wail quietly into his chest, tears falling through nothing onto the floor. His whole body shakes with the force of it.

He’s so small and feels so fragile, like a little bird made of fluff and tiny hollow bones.

It’s been almost two years since he’s seen him, but Lu Ten feels like he should have gotten bigger in that time. He has a sudden twist of realization that, duty to his country or not, maybe he was more needed here instead. Then maybe he’d still be alive, and he wouldn’t be analyzing the dark smudges under Zuko’s eyes and the way he doesn’t act like he knows how to react to touches of kindness anymore.

“You died?” Zuko finally manages to sniffle out between hiccuping sobs.

“Yeah, kid. Sorry.” Lu Ten lets him go not a small bit reluctantly, gives him a good looking over. “I’m here now, though. It’s my job.”

“Your job?” 

He’s definitely not telling this kid about his exchange with Agni or the deal he accidentally made when he was ten years old. Maybe when he’s older, but definitely not right now.

“Of course. It’s always been my job. You think I could just go off and die, and leave you all alone? I could _never_.”

Zuko sends him a wet, watery smile that barely lifts his lips, but it’s something. It’s not enough but it can be enough for now, because Lu Ten’s here, Lu Ten is home, and he’s determined to find out what he’s missed since he’s been gone.

* * *

Lu Ten has missed a _lot_.

Uncle Ozai is still awful, so that hasn’t changed a bit. 

If anything, he’s managed to get nastier. Lu Ten’s never liked the way he spoke to his wife and son but Zuko’s never flinched around him the way he does now. Every move the man makes comes with a hard little jerk of Zuko’s shoulders or a ducking of his jaw, a boatload of tension in his entire body, and instant, unwavering silence.

Zuko has always been a noisy kid and seeing him go so quiet and still is weird and uncomfortable.

Aunt Ursa looks small in a similar way to her son.

She was never the same after losing her second baby, was always a little more quiet and frail and damaged afterwards, but not like this. She looks like she’s given up. 

For lack of anything better to do, Lu Ten accompanies Zuko to dinner that night, and suffers through Uncle Ozai interrogating Zuko about why he’d left training early that day. He doesn’t even ask if he was okay, even though the excuse was that he was hurt.

Lu Ten bristles at the disdainful way he talks to him and looks to Aunt Ursa to see if she speaks up.

She doesn’t.

Zuko curls in on himself and stops eating, and Lu Ten leans on him from behind the chair, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and glares. He doesn’t do anything but glare but it’s a close thing, and that’s mostly because he’s so reluctant to let go of his cousin that he doesn’t risk it. 

After dinner, Uncle Ozai takes a large, hard step towards Zuko and startles him badly enough that he hits his hip on the corner of the table. A sailor’s swear comes out of him and Ozai raises a hand—

Lu Ten slams his fist on the wall, hard enough to rattle the artwork on the walls. 

“What was that?”

Zuko doesn’t look up at him.

Lu Ten glares and hits the wall again, with feeling. Ozai backs off.

This is a _problem_.

* * *

The missive containing the news of Lu Ten’s death arrives.

Zuko, who’s finally used to seeing Lu Ten fuzzy and transparent has the most obvious and _concerning_ nonreaction that he could possibly have. He stands there, silent and numb. It’s not a shock to him anymore, but it’s still hard to hear. 

Lu Ten’s insides go twisty with nerves to hear about his own death, about how his father is falling apart and his comrades-in-arms are mourning, and how the army’s been torching the Earth Kingdom at double time to make up for it.

Zuko is so still and so quiet that Aunt Ursa watches him in silence for a long, long while.

Uncle Ozai is _happy_ about it and bad at hiding it.

* * *

“What do you think about this war we’re fighting, Zuko?”

Zuko looks up from the scroll he’s reading. Technically he’s supposed to be reading up on his history, but Lu Ten knows full well that that’s a transcription of _Love Amongst The Dragons_ instead.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you think it’s right?”

Zuko frowns.

“Of course it’s right. It’s our duty. And the rest of the world would kill us if given the chance, so it’s only right that we strike first. All they have to do is surrender and everything would be okay.”

Lu Ten loves his little cousin more than anything in the world, _literally._ He spent months agonizing over his own thoughts and opinions on the matter, and all he got for it was a pointless death. Zuko’s experience needs to be easier. Lu Ten watches him for a bit, chin in his hands, and considers how to go about this.

“Okay. Think about it like this. Imagine that you live in Ba Sing Se. Would you surrender to us? Do you think that what we’re doing is right?”

Zuko frowns.

“Those are traitor thoughts.”

“And what’s anyone gonna do to me now? Answer the question, little cousin. Would you surrender? Would you feel like it was right?”

Zuko puts his scroll away without a word and crawls into his bed. He blows out the candle and turns away from Lu Ten, and doesn’t say another word to him for the rest of the night and the following day.

“Do _you_ think it’s right?” Zuko asks the next night. He’s supposed to be sleeping but Lu Ten’s been listening to him toss and turn endlessly, in between walking his own rounds of the palace. 

“I’d like to know your thoughts. I already know my own.”

Zuko chews on his lip.

“I don’t...want anyone to get hurt. I don’t want to hurt people. If they could not get hurt by giving up, then they should do that.”

“Would you?”

“...maybe. If I thought that they were right.” He looks up and glares. “You’re talking in circles and it’s annoying. Fire Lord Azulon says that the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes want us all dead. They should be grateful that all we demand is surrender. We’re _saving_ them.”

Lu Ten has had men surrender to him fighting on the Wall. He’d been ordered to kill them just as dead the ones who went down fighting. Dead was dead.

Unless, apparently, your name was Lu Ten.

“Why are we fighting, Prince Zuko?”

“Because...other nations would see us all burned first.”

“Why would they want that, if we’re really trying to save them?”

“...I. I don’t know.”

Lu Ten leans forward and brushes a hand over Zuko’s hair. It’s long and falling out of the loose braid he likes to put it in before bed.

“Can I tell you a story, little cousin? It’s not a happy story, but it’s mine, and I’d like you to know it. The best thing I can give you is the truth. Or the truth as I’ve seen it.”

Lu Ten talks for a long, long time. He talks about how the other people of the world see the Fire Nation, not as a benevolent, well-meaning parent but a blight upon every culture not their own. He talks about being made to cut down those people who’ve already given up. He talks about losing his own men and writing letter after letter, so many pointless deaths for nothing. He talks about how he doesn’t want Zuko to have to kill people who aren’t fighting back, just because someone told him to.

And then, finally, the hardest part—he talks about the Air Nomads.

Even his own details are sketchy, but the guy was a historian before he got drafted. Like, a _real_ historian, had an old scroll and everything that talked about the battle nearly a hundred years ago. Not a battle, though. A genocide. An annihilation of an entire people’s culture. That they had likely killed the very last Avatar, because the last known had been an airbender.

They never had an army—just monks, nuns, and kids.

Sozin did that to the airbenders, and Azulon wants to do it to the rest of the world.

Zuko _cries_.

Not loudly or dramatically, but he buries his face in his hands and chokes out tiny, hitching sobs into his palms. Lu Ten waits him out and gently pats his knee with a hand. He has to think this through for himself, even though it hurts.

“It’s not right,” Zuko finally whispers. His voice is hollow with horror and shock, at his own heart’s betrayal, it’s _rejection_ , of his country’s glorious mission. Lu Ten understands. “It’s not right.”

Only then does Lu Ten lean forward and hug him, curling his body around him.

“Why? Why would we…?”

“I know, firecracker, I know. It’s a mess.”

“It’s _wrong,_ Lu Ten. It’s wrong.”

“It is.”

“I’m a prince,” Zuko mumbles and allows himself to be bundled up in his blankets and tucked into his bed. “It’s my job to—to fix it. I gotta fix it.”

“Not right now you don’t,” Lu Ten tells him. “You’ve got to worry about growing up a little bit first.”

* * *

Ozai has been _putting his hands_ on Zuko.

What has only been a suspicion at first has now solidified into fact. When Lu Ten asks him about it, Zuko (who’s never been anything other than honest with him) goes quiet and cagey. His fear manifests in stony silences now, and Lu Ten doesn’t have to think that hard to wonder where he learned it. He doesn’t have to ask why he doesn’t defend himself—Zuko _can’t._

Loyalty is a powerful drive for any child but especially for Fire Nation, and that goes double for a kid like Zuko. He’s so determined to please that it doesn’t even occur to him that it shouldn’t be happening—only that it happens because he’s doing something wrong and that if only he could just be better, then his father would be satisfied.

Lu Ten cannot and will not tolerate it.

In the days after the news of Lu Ten’s death, things are quiet. Quiet enough that Lu Ten spends a good amount of time hovering over his aunt as well as his cousin.

It’s a mistake.

Zuko shows up at the training yards with finger-shaped bruises around his throat and a dazed, disoriented look on his face and Lu Ten _loses his mind_ , to the point that when he comes back to himself, he realizes that he’s frightened his little cousin up a tree. It takes a good five minutes of pleading to get him down and when Lu Ten swings him into a hug, Zuko’s whole body shakes.

This will not happen again. Lu Ten will make sure of it.

Only one person in the world would dare leave marks on this particular kid and it’s not a stretch to figure out who it is.

Ozai’s been pushing Lu Ten’s buttons his entire life, why should it be any different in death?

Lu Ten stops following anyone else and starts sticking to Zuko like glue. Generally he tries to be pretty quiet, because the kid reacts to him instinctively without realizing that he’s talking to someone who isn’t there, but sometimes he just can’t help himself.

Zuko’s tutors are all cold and presumptuous and have undoubtedly been picked out personally. Lu Ten dislikes all of them—dislikes the way they say _prince_ like it’s a joke and push at him in the name of royal improvement in a way that he never was when he was that age. It’s because they’ve been allowed to get away with it. Lu Ten wouldn’t have put up with it and neither would Father.

Uncle Ozai _encourages_ it.

It comes to a head three days later.

It shouldn’t even have been worth noting.

Zuko’s walking one way and Uncle Ozai the other, having just come out of a meeting. Zuko had gone to the turtleduck pond in the garden after his lessons and the bottoms of his shoes are wet. They pass each other.

Ozai slips in a puddle and stumbles.

The bright crackle of laughter that comes out of Lu Ten dies when the man gets up, enraged, and backhands Zuko hard across the cheek.

Lu Ten doesn’t think twice about grabbing the priceless, heirloom vase in range and hurling it at him. It shatters on the wall, inches from Ozai’s head.

“ _Fucking try it again!_ ” He roars at the top of his lungs. Rips a painting off the wall and swings hard, hitting the man about the head and shoulders with it. “Don’t you touch him!! I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!!” The glass in the frame shatters.

Ozai tries to fight off what he can’t touch, singes the walls and floor with flame. He takes a step towards Zuko, backed up flush against the wall. His cheek is already beginning to bruise and his eyes are huge and wet.

Lu Ten whallops him again and this time the canvas rips on the way down, leaving the painting hanging around Ozai’s neck like a collar.

“Touch him one more time and see what happens!” He orders, voice hard. He knows that the man can’t hear him but _Zuko_ can, and that’s who needs to hear it most. 

Ozai backs away and Lu Ten pounds threateningly on the wall and stomps his feet.

Shaken and ignoring his son completely, Ozai flees, painting still looped around his neck.

Lu Ten drops his hands and goes to Zuko, drops to the floor in front of him and pulls him into a hug. The kid’s still so shocked and frightened that he can’t make a sound even when the tears overflow and slip down his cheeks, and his hands stay limp at his sides.

He doesn’t say a word.

* * *

Ozai thinks that Zuko is possessed. 

He summons the boy down to the heart of the caldera, where magma flows in little rivers and drips down the walls, and brings him before the Fire Sages. 

Lu Ten doesn’t know if the excess of spiritual energy will allow him to be properly seen or acknowledged, and he’s not sure how it makes him feel. Regardless, he can’t make himself abandon Zuko and stands firmly behind him, arms crossed over his chest, while Zuko submits to being poked and prodded and blessed and prayed over by a bunch of old, wrinkly Sages.

Zuko’s worried out of his mind that they’ll try and exorcise him.

Lu Ten, on the other hand, is fairly certain that Agni themself won’t let that happen.

Let them try.

“The boy is not possessed!” The head sage declares, finally. “There is a spiritual energy around him, warm and bright as Agni’s own light, but it is not a _vengeful_ spirit.”

Lu Ten wishes that Uncle Ozai could see him, just for a moment, so that he could properly glare him in the eyes. They both know that he’s vengeful enough.

“From what we can tell, it’s a protective spirit, not a harmful one. The boy is _blessed,_ Prince Ozai. As long as Prince Zuko remains safe and unharmed, there should be no problems. How lucky you are, that your firstborn has such a stalwart protector!”

Lu Ten makes a profane hand gesture at his Uncle and smirks. 

And that’s the end of that.

Mostly.

Lu Ten’s less covert about his existence now that he’s been acknowledged and now that he knows that Zuko won’t be put away for life if he behaves a little bit oddly. 

Suddenly, Zuko’s tutors and instructors are having unfortunate accidents every time they behave poorly towards their student and more than one servant falls on their face after one too many smart remarks, and eventually it becomes common practice to treat the little prince with the basic courtesy that he deserves. 

* * *

Father gives up his bid for Ba Sing Se.

Father is coming _home_.

* * *

_Are you okay?_

Even if it’s known that Zuko has a spirit attached to him, it’s still not a great idea if he goes around talking to nothing, and he’s taken the initiative to learn how to communicate with hand signals.

Lu Ten learns with him.

“I’m fine, kid. Don’t worry about it.”

Zuko frowns at him.

_Liar_ , he signs, slowly because he has to think about it. _Bad liar._

“I don’t wanna hear about that from you.”

Because Lu Ten is afraid and not okay at all. He hasn’t had to confront any actual repercussions of his own death but Father...it broke him. It broke him and Lu Ten doesn’t know what he’s going to do. He can help _Zuko_ but in this, he’s helpless to help his father, and he doesn’t know what to do.

Zuko stands next to Aunt Ursa and waits for his Uncle to arrive, Lu Ten a pacing, nervous mess next to him. He’s been ordered to have decorum and to behave appropriately by his mother, because this is a hard time for his Uncle Iroh and he shouldn’t be greeted by tears or overwhelming emotion. Lu Ten doesn’t think that he can do it, personally.

Zuko cares _hard_ and his fingers twist in the red formal robes he’s been asked to wear, trimmed with white for mourning. He loves Lu Ten’s father the way that Lu Ten has never loved Ozai, and he worries. Zuko’s had the time to adjust to Lu Ten’s death but it looks like it’s hitting him all over again.

Zuko is lucky because he can feel his cousin’s touches the way he could when he was alive, if a bit colder than before, as if he’s just come in from the snow. Everyone else just feels cold.

Lu Ten can’t hug his father and be felt, not the way he wants to.

Lu Ten wants to cry when those doors open and Father comes inside. He’s lost weight and his face is drawn and sad, and every part of him looks like it’s given up. Lu Ten shoves his hands hard into his eyes and it doesn’t help. Zuko looks in horror from his uncle, to his ghostly wreck of a cousin, and back to his Uncle Iroh. Aunt Ursa makes a vain attempt at holding onto his sleeve.

It doesn’t work.

Zuko slips her grip and rockets across the room to barrel headlong into his uncle, grabs him hard around the middle and squeezes him tight. He’s a kind, softhearted kid, and seeing Father look like that is a sharp, painful knife to that very soft heart.

“I’m sorry, Uncle Iroh, I’m _so sorry_!” he whispers.

Lu Ten’s heart hurts, but he can’t seem to look away, watches how Father reaches around and holds onto Zuko as if he’s a lifeline thrown to him in a storm, scoops him up off the floor and holds him like he’s very tiny and not almost eleven years old.

Lu Ten can’t stop himself, and folds his father and his cousin into a hug that only one of them can really feel. Father shivers at the sudden burst of chill that pops over his skin but Zuko doesn’t, just accepts it as a fact and covertly wraps an arm around Lu Ten’s waist like that can be enough.

Maybe it can be.

* * *

  
  


Everything goes to hell and no one is okay.

Aunt Ursa is with child, again.

Aunt Ursa miscarries and doesn’t want to see her husband, doesn’t want to see her brother-in-law, doesn’t even want to see her _son_. She’s wasting away and there’s nothing anyone can do about it. All of the palace healers come to the same conclusion: she cannot recover because she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t get stronger because she doesn’t want to.

_Failure to thrive_ is what it’s called in infants, but Lu Ten has never seen it happen to an adult.

Aunt Ursa won’t see Zuko at all, so he demands that Lu Ten stay with her instead. 

“It’s okay if she doesn’t want to see me,” he mumbles when Lu Ten protests. “I’m okay.”

No one is okay.

“Zuko—“

“ _No,_ ” the boy snaps back. “ _Go_. I don’t want you right now. Go be with my mom.”

Lu Ten goes, and wonders where he messed up.

Aunt Ursa looks _horrible_ in the too-big royal bed, pale and weak. He sits on the edge and doesn’t touch her because she already looks cold enough.

“What the hell is this?” Lu Ten orders with purpose. 

“I told you that your deal had a price, little spirit.” 

Lu Ten doesn’t have to look to know who’s there but he turns anyway. Agni sits cross legged by Aunt Ursa’s head, strokes their warm hand across her forehead.

“I thought—“

“You thought wrong, turtledove. A life for a life isn’t enough, not for _this one._ You wanted your cousin and you got him—and no others.”

“That’s- that’s not fair! I’m not the one who paid! Aunt Ursa didn’t make a deal with you, I did!”

Agni watches him, sympathetic but firm.

“I don’t make the rules, I don’t decide the price, and I don’t decide who pays. When you put your prayer out into the universe, you didn’t have enough to bargain with. Concessions had to be taken. Like a loan.”

“Loans get repaid.”

“And they have been. You didn’t pray alone that night, did you? Though, one could even say that you _are_ paying, in a way. Does it not hurt to watch your family in pain and be able to do nothing about it?”

Of course it hurts.

Lu Ten rubs his eyes.

“I thought you said that my death was a side effect.”

“And it is. Was. What you don’t understand is this: not everything is created equal, even lives and souls. Would you pay the same price for a large, perfect apple-granate as you would one that’s mealy and rotten? Of course you wouldn’t. You humans love to quibble over fair, but here’s the truth of it: fair doesn’t exist and when it does, you don’t want it. I exist in _loopholes,_ little spirit, and I am allowed to play favorites, and the only reason you got what you wanted at all was because I decided to _twist your price_ for the sake of one of my own, precious children.” 

Agni reaches out and gives Lu Ten a pat on the head, like a disobedient pet. 

“I do love you, you know. As a species, even though you’re difficult. In a way, it’s one of the most charming things about you. Your irreverence is refreshing.”

The room suddenly goes so boiling hot that Lu Ten thinks he must be in the middle of the volcano, and he realizes that he’s pushed his luck.

“But don’t think for a _moment_ that I couldn’t have easily ignored you. Would you like me to take it all back? I can do that. You can have your life back, of course, and the little princess so determined to exist in the world, and your Aunt’s good health…and say goodbye to your little firecracker prince.”

Agni waits, arms folded and annoyed. Lu Ten looks down at the floor and shakes his head, and the heat recedes.

“It’s not your fault,” they say, so gently that Lu Ten wants to cry. “You’re only human. You can’t ever help asking for more than can be given. But this is your price.”

“When does Aunt Ursa stop paying it?” He asks, helpless. 

Agni doesn’t answer, instead turns back to Aunt Ursa. The look on their face is soft and sympathetic, a hard change from the previous rage.

“Lady Ursa is also mine, you know.”

“...I know.”

“My intention is not to be cruel. _You_ are my child, too.”

And then Agni is gone, leaving Lu Ten alone.

Aunt Ursa lives, in the end, and is told that she won’t ever have any more children. It’s a kindness, Lu Ten knows, probably the only kindness that Agni could give, but it doesn’t stop Zuko from mourning what could have been. He desperately wanted a little sibling, and it hurts him as much as it relieves Lu Ten.

He can’t tell him the truth. Not now.

* * *

Ozai’s up to something.

Lu Ten doesn’t like him and doesn’t trust him for anything, but it’s different, now. He seems...happy, even though he has nothing that he wants. He has Aunt Ursa who sometimes holes up in her quarters and refuses to see anyone, he has Zuko who he still considers to be a massive disappointment, and he has Father, who’s pulled himself out of his hole of grief in favor of looking after his nephew.

And then he petitions Fire Lord Azulon to switch his heir.

Lu Ten’s dead and even he’s a little bit afraid at the way that the old man rages at his youngest son, offended to his very core that he would demand such a thing.

Zuko’s not supposed to be there, of course, but he’s recently discovered that the only way to properly learn anything is to sneak around and eavesdrop. Is it particularly princely behavior? No. Is it effective?

It is extremely effective.

“But Father, be _reasonable_ ,” Ozai says. Zuko doesn’t breathe. “You know that Iroh will not marry again, and he’s lost his only son. Of course he’s in deep mourning, as we all are, but can someone so aggrieved really rule over our great nation?”

Neither of them can hear Azulon’s response but it’s hard and angry and includes the words _lose your firstborn_ , and Lu Ten’s first thought is that he is entirely unprepared to fight his grandfather but he will if he has to.

And then there’s the sound of shouting and the curtains catch fire. Zuko forgets sometimes that he can bend and instead of sweeping them away he gives a startled yelp and ducks out into the throne room—

And stops dead.

Azulon is dead on the floor, limp as a ragdoll.

“O-oh…” the boy stammers, “ _Oh_.”

“Boy, you’ve done it now.” 

Zuko recoils at the sight of his father. The man looks _crazed_ and out of his mind. Lu Ten forgets, not for the first time, that the dead can’t bend, because his first instinct is still to throw flame, even though he’s been dead for over a year now. Zuko starts backing up on his approach, scrambling until his back hits the wall.

Lu Ten looks for something to throw but there’s _nothing_ , and Zuko’s the only person he’s figured out how to properly touch. He feels helpless, and no amount of pulling and hitting does anything to stop the man’s steady advance.

“F-father, please,” Zuko stammers, “Please don't, d-don't—“

“Don’t touch him, you piece of shit, don’t you touch him, _don’t you touch him_ ,” Lu Ten snarls in rage, steps in front of Zuko and throws his arms out.

Ozai walks right through him.

There’s a lot about the world and about his family that Lu Ten doesn’t know, but he knows this:

Zuko can’t fight his father. He doesn’t have the power and his heart won’t let him. Like a baby pygmy-puma, all he knows how to do in the face of his father’s anger is surrender and go limp, because that’s what children are _supposed to do_.

Lu Ten doesn’t know when he started howling, tears of heartbreak and rage slipping down his cheeks. He slams the walls as hard as he can, desperate to make any sort of distraction.

It doesn’t work.

“Stay away from him!” he shrieks, “Zuko, Zuko, you have to run. You have to— _go, you have to get up, get away from him!_ ”

Zuko’s frozen in fear, a trembling, terrified statue.

Very slowly he drops, slides down the wall to stare up at Ozai, who’s grinning at him like some mad thing.

“What a shame,” he says, “Fire Lord Azulon was always so unreasonable. Heartbreaking, that he was so angry that he had his only living grandson executed. It’s only right that a father avenge his poor, murdered son, isn't it, Prince Zuko?”

“Please, Father, _don’t_ , I won’t tell anyone, don’t—“

Ozai reaches down and grabs Zuko by the throat, pulls him up off the floor and squeezes hard, so hard the boy wheezes out a sob and then goes silent.

“You’ll be dead and no one will be able to say anything otherwise—“

Lu Ten considers, for just a split second, asking for Agni’s assistance, then thinks better of it. He knows that whatever his help might cost, he won’t be able to afford it. He has so little left to pay and _all_ of it is precious.

_I do so love when humans learn_ echoes in his head, _I think I can give you a freebie on this one. I_ **_tire_ ** _of this one._

Abruptly, Zuko goes very still, and Lu Ten doesn’t know what happens but Ozai drops him, howling in pain. The palms of his hands are red and burned, bubbled and blistering already.

Zuko’s eyes, always gold from the moment he opened them the day he was born, are glowing, brighter than any artifact, brighter than the crown, brighter than flame.

The voice that comes from his mouth is inhuman.

“ _You’ve harmed my children for the last time, Prince Ozai.”_

Agni speaks through him and it’s _horrible_ , and Agni in Zuko’s body slides into an unfamiliar bending stance, holds two fingers on each hand together. He circles them and white-blue crackles of sparks gather around his hands.

Ozai’s face drains of color and Agni-in-Zuko throws lightning without hesitation.

He drops like a stone and so does Zuko.

Lu Ten scrambles forward to throw himself to the ground by his little cousin, limp and still on the floor with already darkening collar of bruises circling his neck.

“No, no, no,” he pleads unthinkingly, gathers him up and holds him close, “No.”

Zuko drags in a shaking breath, and another, and Lu Ten sobs in relief.

“ _Thank you,_ ” he whispers, “Thank you for letting me keep him.”

_You paid your price,_ Agni’s beautiful, painful voice booms in his head and then goes silent. 

Lu Ten can’t let himself melt down yet, not with Zuko helpless in the throne room with the bodies of his father and grandfather. Just like when he was a child, Lu Ten can only think of one person he can go to who always seems to know what to do.

Father’s playing pai sho with a maid when Lu Ten slams the door open with a hard clatter. Both of them look up, startled, and the surprise turns to trepidation at seeing...no one there.

Lu Ten has no time for subtlety or finesse and grabs a piece of paper off the desk and a brush and scribbles out a message, chucking it, wet ink and all, at his father.

_THRONE ROOM. HELP ZUKO._

Father’s face drains of all its color and he throws himself out of his chair to bolt in the right direction. Lu Ten runs at his heels and then passes him, ducks through the wall that he knows will be a shortcut.

Zuko’s right where Lu Ten left him, a limp bundle of limbs, and Lu Ten kneels down next to him, brushes his hair out of his face.

Father will help. 

Father always knows what to do.

Lu Ten’s hands are trembling.

Iroh slams open the doors to the throne room and barrels in, stops dead and _stares_ at the carnage— the still burning curtains and the empty throne and the two dead royals…and his nephew, a heap on the floor.

“Zuko!” He shouts and races towards him, pulling him up off the floor and into his arms. “Oh, Zuko. Wake up, nephew. Wake up. _Please._ ”

Lu Ten desperately wants to comfort him and give the reassurance that Father needs but in the end, Zuko does that himself.

He stirs, blinking blearily first at his uncle and then slightly to the left, directly at Lu Ten.

“Lu Ten,” he mumbles softly, and Lu Ten wishes that he wouldn’t, if only because the sound of his name breaks Iroh’s heart all over again, “Lu Ten. It’s okay, it’s _okay,_ don’t _cry_.” He reaches out a hand, weak as a kitten-owlet, and makes a good, solid attempt to wipe his tears away.

It’s not okay at all.

“Zuko, Prince Zuko, Lu Ten isn’t here,” Father mumbles desolately to him. “You need to see the healer.”

“ _No_ ,” Zuko protests and struggles a little bit like he thinks he stands a chance of freeing himself, “No, he’s here. He’s always been here! He didn’t leave you, Uncle, I promise, he didn’t leave you. He helped me.” Zuko’s lower lip starts to wobble dangerously and his eyes well up with tears. “Lu Ten…”

“Shhh, shhh, it’s okay.” Lu Ten sweeps forward and cradles Zuko’s face in his hands, presses a kiss to his forehead, tries not to cry himself. “It’s okay. He knows, firecracker. It’s okay. It’s okay. He knows.”

Zuko goes quiet and doesn’t say another word.

* * *

Fire Lord Iroh is crowned the next day and, with Aunt Ursa’s consent and blessing, claims Prince Zuko as his heir. It’s unconventiona,l but there aren’t a whole lot of people who are going to tell Father no. The people are happy and the Fire Sages are happy, and that’s half the battle.

Zuko isn’t happy.

Zuko doesn’t say a word throughout the whole process, and his hands are stubbornly still despite Lu Ten’s efforts to engage him in conversation. Head to toe in white and wearing the headpiece of Crown Prince, all he looks is tired and sad.

Lu Ten stands next to him and curls an arm around his shoulders and wishes, not for the first time, that he hadn’t died. Zuko’s been a little bit off, a little bit different, since Agni took him over. Even besides the selective silence that tends to sweep over him when he hits his breaking point.

Despite the public scrutiny, Zuko tips his head and leans into his cousin, seemingly against nothing, and doesn’t seem to care.

* * *

“We need to tell Uncle Iroh about you.”

Those are the first words to come out of Zuko's mouth or hands in almost two weeks, and Lu Ten is so startled that he falls out of his chair.

“What?”

“We’ve gotta tell him,” he says patiently, sounding more sure of himself than he’s ever sounded about anything. “He should know. He thinks that you _left_ him, and he thinks that I—he thinks I made you up, that day he pulled me out of the throne room. I want him to know.”

That Zuko has a spirit guardian isn’t _exactly_ a secret, but it’s definitely not something that everyone knows about. Father definitely knows about it now after Lu Ten’s frantic bid for assistance two weeks ago. Lu Ten wasn’t exactly subtle about it, or quiet, but so much has happened that Father’s been too overloaded with everything else to really focus on it. He’s been making so many changes—good changes, shifting the views on the war and working towards a peaceful resolution.

It’s amazing.

But the point is that he hasn’t really questioned Zuko about his experiences with spirits, but Lu Ten has a feeling that that’s about to change, if Zuko’s stubborn expression is to be believed.

“Zuko, you know it’ll hurt him. He might not even believe you.”

“I’ll _make_ him believe me! You know you can still write, so you could write down stuff only you would know. I know you have inside jokes.”

This is true, but the truth is that Lu Ten’s not so afraid of not being believed so much as he’s not sure if his own heart can take it.

Zuko’s still talking, as if making up for lost time.

“Oh! I should go talk to the Fire Sages. They’re spiritual like Uncle is—maybe there’s a way that we can get him to be able to see you properly! Then he’d have to believe me.”

Lu Ten doesn’t want to talk about it or think about it anymore. He’s already accepted that Zuko’s the only person he’s really going to be able to make an impact on, and he’s okay with it, truly...but the boy’s optimistic hope is a painful thing, and he doesn’t want to let it settle.

Zuko gives up on the idea, but only for now. 

Lu Ten’s not dumb enough to think that it’ll stick.

* * *

  
  


Lu Ten doesn’t know how it happens, but his squirrely little monster of a cousin manages to put the entire thing together without telling him about it, or even giving him a warning. He should have _known_ , because he’s been skipping geography in favor of harassing the Fire Sages, but every time he asks about it, Zuko just showed him some books they’d lent him.

“Apparently, _back in the day,_ ” accompanied by air quotes, because Zuko is definitely still eleven years old and the same precious brat Lu Ten loves, “The Fire Lord had the same position as Head Sage. So a leader and a center in spiritual energy and dealing with Fire Nation spirits. So, like, a shaman.”

“Do you _want_ to be a shaman?” Li Ten asks.

Zuko’s face goes serious.

“I’m not sure I have a choice. What happened... _then_ , you know,” because he still can’t really make himself talk about it properly, “I feel different. And I’ve seen and felt, um. Some things I couldn’t see before. Like I could always see _you_ , but now I see more.”

Maybe this is something that Zuko’s always had or maybe it’s something that Agni’s given him by accident (or _accidentally on purpose,_ as Lu Ten’s inclined for believe), but either way, Lu Ten can tell that he’s serious about it.

So he lets it go and doesn’t ask again.

He should have asked again.

Not asking again is how Lu Ten finds himself back down in the heart of the caldera, Zuko holding firmly onto his wrist with one hand and that of his uncle with the other.

“Zuko, this is a terrible idea. You’re going to give him a heart attack.”

“Shut up,” Zuko tells him outright, ignoring Iroh’s jerk of surprise at his nephew talking to thin air. “It’ll be fine. Don’t be dramatic.”

“How dare you call me dramatic? I’ve seen the garbage you like to read. Respect the dead.”

Zuko sticks his tongue out at him and plunks himself down on the ground.

“Sit, sit,” he tells his uncle. “I’m not sure if it’ll work. It _should_ work. But I’ve never tried, so…” he trails off and chews on his lower lip, concentrating hard. “I had Fire Sage Shinya brew me a tea that’s supposed to amplify spiritual power, and theoretically if I practice, I _should_ get better at it.” He grins, a little crookedly. “No time to try like the present, right?”

“Zuko, please stop talking in circles,” Iroh says, and both Zuko and Lu Ten snort at the sheer _irony._

“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work,” Zuko says. “But I think that it will. I’ve got a _feeling_.” He shifts his gaze from Iroh, to Lu Ten, and then back to his uncle. “I want you to know, okay? About my guardian spirit. For me; and for you, and for him too.”

“Do I need to do anything?” Lu Ten asks, a little out of his depth.

Zuko shakes his head. 

“You shouldn’t have to. Just keep contact with me; it should help make the process easier? I...think. Maybe. Hopefully. Who knows?” He shrugs. “You too, Uncle.” The boy closes his eyes, takes some forcibly calm, deep breaths, and Lu Ten settles down to wait, arm wrapped comfortably around Zuko’s shoulders and face tipped against his head.

Maybe it’ll help if he closes his eyes too.

It can’t hurt.

Long minutes go by, long enough that Lu Ten’s positive that nothing’s going to happen, that this is all going to be for nothing, just like his own pointless death.

Father gasps.

Lu Ten’s eyes fly open.

Father’s _staring_ at him. At him-at him, not just in his general direction. His eyes are huge and quickly going glassy. 

“ _Lu Ten_?”

Lu Ten uses his free hand to give a tiny, awkward wave, gives Zuko’s shoulders a squeeze. He’s more grateful for this than he thinks he’s been for just about anything else, and his heart is so full he can’t stand it.

He opens his mouth but no words come out.

“I told you,” Zuko whispers with a bright, secretive smile, still focusing hard on keeping Lu Ten visible, “He never left you.” He frowns a little. “I’m sorry I kept it a secret. I just…wasn’t sure if I could do it. I didn’t want to hurt you if—if I couldn’t.”

Iroh lurches forward and grabs his children, biological and adopted, into his arms. Lu Ten’s not quite corporeal enough for anyone but Zuko to really touch but he’s definitely more so than before.

“How did this happen?” Father asks faintly.

Zuko looks to his cousin, because even he’s not entirely sure.

“I, uh, made a deal,” he answers eventually. He won’t say anything more than that until he’s ready to tell Zuko, and he’s not ready for that yet. Neither of them are. “That’s not important.”

“You’re not even gonna tell him _hello_?” Zuko grumbles under his breath like the eleven year old monster that he is.

Lu Ten pinches his cheek.

His eyes burn.

“Hello, Father,” Lu Ten says, finally. “I’ve missed you.”

* * *

  
  


**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Equivalent Exchange [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/26748055) by [Rionaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rionaa/pseuds/Rionaa)




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